Thursday, February 28, 2013

While working at the Detroit Tigers’ spring facility in Lakeland, Gov. Rick Scott announced today he will ask the Florida Legislature to set aside $5 million a year for projects specifically aimed at improving the Major League Baseball training facilities in the state.

“It’s my job as governor to make sure Florida remains the number one destination for spring training and that is why we will work to provide $5 million annually to only be used for spring training facilities,” Scott said in a statement that was released while Scott was participating in one of his “work days” with the Tigers at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland.

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Of course you and I would say that the US had no stomach for more invasions- but who knows what was going on inside their minds? We'd labeled them a one third of an Axis of Evil- and considering where are forces were physically stationed- if we were going to tackle number 2- they were next in line

The grilled shrimp appetizer had just arrived at the 128th annual press-pols Gridiron dinner Saturday night when NAACP President Benjamin Jealous fell into conversation with a fellow white-tied dinner guest about the Supreme Court’s recent argument over the Voting Rights Act. The distinguished-looking gentleman told Jealous he thought the NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer, Debo P. Adegbile, had done a fine job arguing that the law needed to be continued.

Sure, but what happened to the solicitor general? Jealous wondered aloud, he was just awful.

Well, I am the solicitor general, Donald Verrilli Jr. replied.

An apparently mortified Jealous apologized profusely and excused himself from the table for what seemed to folks at the table an awfully long time, returning just about when the famous Gridiron petits fours arrived with coffee.

This probably happens a lot here with all the anonymous BBTF handles, but most just let it go.

And of course, since NOT having a WMD program didn't even save Iraq, and denying it all the while, the Iranians would be fools to abandon theirs. Not to mention the fact that 1/2 of their near-neighbors and geopolitical rivals are all nuclear (Pakistan/India/China/Russia/Israel) states.

Of course, they are not fools.

And neither is the US State Dept. or the CIA. If we 'uns can cipher this out, it's pretty damn obvious. It's all a snow job.
The US (and Isreal) know the Iranians are trying to go nuclear - and probably know within a 18 month window when this will be - but they know they don't really have the political will or capital to stop it. And stopping it FOR REALS means many 100,000s of boots on the ground in a country nearly as rugged as Afghanistan with a population twice as big and a better industrial/technology base.

From Iran's perspective - what they want exactly is to on the surface appear to be complying (so that the US/NATO can lie less brazenly to their fear-the-nuclear-brown-man populous) while covertly making it seem that their weapons development is a forgone conclusion WITH the added constraint of trying to spend as little hard currency as possible (since the weapons of course, will never be used) - This is the USSR "missile gap" strategy that Iraq attempted a little too strongly, underestimating the "one free swing at neutral power of your choice" the NeoCons got in after 9/11.

Right, but why? And isn't there some two-way, um, not animosity but - tension?

They were founded for education and evangelization. There has certainly been tension with some national Churches, probably because they pledge special loyalty to the Pope, and historically in Europe, the Church in France and Spain tended to have divided loyalties between the King and the Pope.

There's always tension between religious orders and "secular" diocesan clergy. The local clergy never like it when a religious is made bishop instead of "one of their own". It's kind of an insult to the local clergy that none of them are good enough.

As cardinal, Bergoglio became known for personal humility, doctrinal conservatism and a commitment to social justice. A simple lifestyle contributed to his reputation for humility. He lived in a small apartment, rather than in the palatial bishop's residence. He gave up his chauffeured limousine in favor of public transportation, and he reportedly cooked his own meals.

I like that he is from outside of Europe, like that he is a Jesuit, and like the items listed by tfbg9 in 822. The only thing that I don't like is his age, I would've preferred someone younger, but all in all I'd rather have an old Jesuit from America than a young Italian from the Curia.

Jesuit priests at the time of their solemn and final profession in the Society of Jesus promise: I will never strive or ambition, not even indirectly, to be chosen or promoted to any prelacy or dignity in or outside the Society; and I will do my best never to consent to my election unless I am forced to do so by obedience to him who can order me under penalty of sin (Constitutions S.J., Part X, N°6 [817]).

I like that he is from outside of Europe, like that he is a Jesuit, and like the items listed by tfbg9 in 822. The only thing that I don't like is his age, I would've preferred someone younger, but all in all I'd rather have an old Jesuit from America than a young Italian from the Curia.

I think the nature of the conclave makes it hard for a young candidate. Most don't make Cardinal until their sixties, and it takes a while to become well known among the other Cardinals; they don't get together all that often.

It takes unique circumstance for a younger Cardinal to be well known enough to get 2/3 of the vote. John Paul II had the advantage of the earlier conclave in 1979 to become known among the other Cardinals.

AUSTRALIAN physicists have discovered a method that could see atoms being teleported between Sydney and Perth and pave the way for possible Star Trek-like travel in the future.

The method involves cooling down a group of atoms and shooting lasers at them, making them "appear to disappear" before using transporting them along optic fibres at light speed to another location where they can be reconstructed.

The "simple" way of transporting atoms was developed by physicists Murray Olsen, Ashton Bradley, Simon Haine of the Australian Research Council Centre for Quantum-Atom Optics, and and Joseph Hope of ANU.

Dr Olsen told NEWS.com.au the method was very much like the Star Trek characters' favourite way to get back onto the ship.

The atoms are cooled to almost absolute zero, or -273C. At a billionth of a degree above this temperature, a quirk of physics makes all the atoms start behaving in the same way. Then the scientists zap them with two lasers.

“If you cool these atoms down enough ... in a condensate, they all enter the same quantum state,” Dr Olsen said.

“When a few thousand atoms are overlapping (and you hit them with the laser beams)… they basically disappear.

“We can use an optic fibre (to transport the signal at the speed of light) into a second condensate, which could be in another room, or another building, or another state.

“We’ve got the coldest thing in the universe and the fastest speed in the universe.”

It's also possible to eventually replace optic fibres with directional, non-material vehicles to get the atoms from one place to another.

The extent of the church's complicity in the dark deeds was excellently set out by Horacio Verbitsky, one of Argentina's most notable journalists, in his book El Silencio (Silence). He recounts how the Argentine navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment

Some guy shot set his house on fire, shot up a car wash, shot up a barbershop, four dead, two in critical condition, currently in standoff with SWAT in the middle of our little nowhere in rural New York.

Poor Andrew Cuomo. He rushed to the scene to mug for the cameras and the damn Catholics went and hired a new Pope.

I doubt you're far, I expect to see you show up at his next appearance in Mohawk and give him what for.

@834: I'm not fond of Cuomo, but this is the sort of thing Governors should do: Show up at disasters, evaluate the need for aid, streamline getting aid to where it's needed, offer comfort where it's wanted, and speak plainly as appropriate.

Being good at all those things would be nice, of course. Any idea why Cuomo's a bit... well, off? Despite having a dad with obvious political gifts, and growing up in a political household, young Andrew doesn't seem to have any sense of ease; at least, none that he conveys in public.

This got me looking at his wiki page. I'd thought he was younger, and wiki reminded me of his 2002 gaffe that might have cost him the Governorship back then. Funny--I don't have any feeling at all about a Cuomo run for President.

I've been around Jesuits much of my life, and know a few fairly well. They do embrace the cliche that they are God's Marines. I recall one Jesuit Priest telling me 'we actually go outside the church and meet people.' Less doctrinarian, less interested in the 'inside baseball' functions of the Church is how I'd describe their greatest difference from the Vatican.

I'm a graduate of a Jesuit university, Santa Clara (class of 1980). They didn't convert me away from atheism, by any means, but I was and remain profoundly impressed by the rigor and quality of the academic standards of Jesuit education. They're very good at the scholarship and teaching thing.

Jesuits have historically been a bit more focused on the Church's mission of helping and educating the poor. They are not shy about reminding people in the Church of this fact, and it tends to annoy people.

I, for one, am pretty darn excited about this selection. He definitely has flaws, but he's at the least focused on the people of the Church, rather than the clergy. Still pretty conservative on marriage/women/homosexuality, but a definite step forward.

I was in a meeting yesterday where someone put an apostrophe in the wrong place (employee's when they meant employees') and one person asked about the rule. No problem, I explained it. Then they asked about names ending in "S" and I was able to tell them that doing "Charles'" is an older form, not as commonly used, not recommended by many style guides, but AP still uses it so they could expect to see it in newspapers, etc.

Made me look like a genius. Or a freak, I'm not sure which. Got quite a few "How do you know that stuff?" I did not mention that I picked it up on a baseball site during work hours.

I was in a meeting yesterday where someone put an apostrophe in the wrong place (employee's when they meant employees') and one person asked about the rule. No problem, I explained it. Then they asked about names ending in "S" and I was able to tell them that doing "Charles'" is an older form, not as commonly used, not recommended by many style guides, but AP still uses it so they could expect to see it in newspapers, etc.

I understand the confusion between s's and s' but cannot fathom why so many folks -- even some folks here -- would write "employee's" when referring to multiple people.

Dave Barry usually makes me wince but is good on the misuse of apostrophes here

Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?

A. The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small- business signs to alert the reader that an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand-lettered small- business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.

I am the only one with my name (first + last).
For years, googling my last name turned up page after page of me, but online pseudonyms and lack of real world accomplishment pretty much wiped that out. (Not that that stuff was interesting, but who knows if a prospective employer would hate baseball or my other pursuits.)

When I wrote for a short time for the business weekly in Little Rock (after my stint as an editor at the daily newspaper), I had the same name as the VP of the state banking association. After I moved to Alabama, I found out he'd done the same.

As far as I know, we've never been seen in the same room at the same time.

I've also gotten at least two phone calls over the last few years asking if I'm a certain music teacher. (The only thing I've ever played is the stereo.)

1st two hits are both my facebook page related (meh)
hits three and four are my portrait as a 19th century baseball playing fox
hit five is stat page in the Scarborough Adult Baseball League (which for some reason has a baseball card of Don Mossi as my bio shot)
hit six is my stat page in the British Baseball Federation

howmanyofme.com informs me that there are "1 or fewer people in the U.S." with my name. Is that supposed to be some sort of threat?

Misrlou, my kids have a made-up last name, formed by smooshing together my wife's and my last names. I'm extremely confident nobody else has their last name. That name got the same "117 or fewer" message.

There are thousands of Swabodas? BTW, I've always wondered if your handle comes from the Frederick Forsythe novel The Devil's Alternative

No, when I lived in Eastern Europe, I discovered the word swoboda means freedom. I am a mets fan and always thought Swoboda was a cool name. Actually in Ball Four, Joe Morgan talks about how it should be a superstar name. Of course, he wasn't that good.

In terms of books, I was thinking more of 1984, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. My last name is Cox, actually.

No, when I lived in Eastern Europe, I discovered the word swoboda means freedom. I am a mets fan and always thought Swoboda was a cool name. Actually in Ball Four, Joe Morgan talks about how it should be a superstar name. Of course, he wasn't that good.

In The Devil's Alternative, Ukranian freedom fighters take over a supertanker in the North sea, and demand their breatheran be released or else they will blow up the ship. The leader called himself Svoboda, which he claimed meant freedom.

It had been a while since I tried the exercise, so I put my name as "first last" (with the quotation marks) into Google to see what would happen. OK, so I know my name is fairly uncommon. But even so I was surprised. Except for a few scattered generic "we have names" sites, nearly every entry through 10 pages was unquestionably connected to me. My Rate My Professor page is in there - only it looks like there must be some other sites doing the same thing. There was a Texas marriage record - that was me. And so on. On the first page, there was a link for images. Now that was a mixed bag. Some were pictures of me, including a high school yearbook portrait (who uploads stuff like that?). Some were pictures of formulas that probably come from posts I've made on line. Some were of people who are not me but whom I can instantly identify, such as my Ph.D. advisor. But many of the images have no connection to me at all.

But what, other than the images, in those 10 pages of links, wasn't me? Well, somewhere on the third or fourth page, there was a player card from some league of Sim Dynasty Baseball for a fictional catcher with my name, a brief career in the 1970's, deceased some time in the 1990's. Could one of you guys have been using my name?

Google images brings up one picture of me, which is somehow on the site radaris.com. Which is actually kind of a creepy site because you see how much info about you is out there and easily revealed to anyone looking. It has my immediate family correct including our ages and on the page about me is a huge list of people with my name or my name and the same first initial. Funny thing is that there's only one record for me (under Jim not James) and it has my sister's birthday listed instead of my own. My parents and sister have lots of entries though including what I assume is my dad's address from when he lived in PA. Weird stuff.

So Rob Portman decided to support gay rights as his son comes out. Is it just me or does the GOP only decide to show liberal values when close family or friends are involved? They only like gays when they know one, support research into X when a family memeber has X and so on.

I would say that is everyone, but most democrats support that stuff with or without knowing someone personally. I mean I am glad he has decided to move to the side of light on 1 issue at least. Maybe it is the politics of it, you need a family member to "provide cover" for your support, otherwise you get voted out of office or something.

Edit: References to me take up almost the whole first page of Google results (after telling Google I really did type my last name correctly, no I don't want to search the other more common spelling). There are some dead guys mixed in also, probably ancestors.

Still pretty conservative on marriage/women/homosexuality, but a definite step forward.

I've heard this criticism a lot and, while I understand it, having a lot of disagreement with these church doctrines, I don't get it because there was NO WAY a pope would be elected who was going to say being gay is fine and women should be priests and divorce is cool and everyone should be given 5000 condoms. It just isn't going to happen.

For one thing, the people electing popes are old, conservative men.

For a second, for every "liberal" Catholic in the west there are a two conservatives in the west and a dozen conservatives in the developing world. Hold a straight up democratic election involving every Catholic on the planet on these issues that the US focuses on and the liberal side loses in a landslide of epic proportions.

But the church still wields a lot of influence and is in position to do a lot of good (and bad). If they elect a thoughtful, non-corrupt, intellectual who can clean house in the Vatican, I'm pretty cool if he still thinks women shouldn't be priests.

If you want the Catholic Church to hold different views on the issues described above, what you really want is a different church. If you live in the US you are, of course, free to find one. They're out there. Although, I'll be honest, my first thought attending mass with my wife (who is/was Catholic at the time) is that, wow, this church is really liberal (when compared to the protestant churches in middle America I was raised in).

For me, the selection was cool as it could be simply because NPR fumbled as badly as they did. They seemed completely unprepared for his election. Which seems odd if he was a key contender last time. The announcement came during Talk of the Nation and neither the host nor the reporter they went to seemed to have any clue to any fact about the guy except he was from Argentina. The reporter eventually just punted and said she'd go do some research (which was a nice, honest admission for what had been obvious for 30 seconds - that she hadn't a clue who he was).

I got the impression that howmanyofme does something like (% commonness of first name) * (% commonness of last name) * (# of people). Don't know if they made any attempts to look at correlations with types of names or not, would guess not. Also, think they're database is likely truncated wrt uncommon names - hence caveats like 117 or less.
My last name is, like, 150 years old - was changed prior to immigration from Olsen. There's a California wing I've never met and a few people in Norway, but otherwise, I know 'em all.

For me, the selection was cool as it could be simply because NPR fumbled as badly as they did.

That's interesting - I hadn't researched it but I had seen him get press this time as well.

For me, the selection was cool as it could be simply because NPR fumbled as badly as they did. They seemed completely unprepared for his election. Which seems odd if he was a key contender last time. The announcement came during Talk of the Nation and neither the host nor the reporter they went to seemed to have any clue to any fact about the guy except he was from Argentina. The reporter eventually just punted and said she'd go do some research (which was a nice, honest admission for what had been obvious for 30 seconds - that she hadn't a clue who he was).

I watched the announcement on CNN and they were just as clueless. As the Cardinal (don't remember his name or title) told the crowd, there was about 45 seconds of near silence from the talking heads. Some paper shuffling and some muffled whispers is all.

I got the impression that howmanyofme does something like (% commonness of first name) * (% commonness of last name) * (# of people). Don't know if they made any attempts to look at correlations with types of names or not, would guess not.

Lets see what they say if we mix some name types:
There are 2 people in the U.S. named Mohammed McMahon.
There are 3 people in the U.S. named Mohammed Schwartz.

With a sample of two, it seems to me that they don't do much correlation, but I think I'd like to meet those guys if they exist.

There are supposedly 19 people with my exact name, which seems about right.

I've heard this criticism a lot and, while I understand it, having a lot of disagreement with these church doctrines, I don't get it because there was NO WAY a pope would be elected who was going to say being gay is fine and women should be priests and divorce is cool and everyone should be given 5000 condoms. It just isn't going to happen.

I mean, I agree with you here. It's still disappointing because I feel like the Church is wrong on those issues. Those issues are pretty much why I am not a practicing Catholic. FYIW, I don't lump divorce in there. I find the Catholic teaching on Divorce okay.

For a second, for every "liberal" Catholic in the west there are a two conservatives in the west and a dozen conservatives in the developing world. Hold a straight up democratic election involving every Catholic on the planet on these issues that the US focuses on and the liberal side loses in a landslide of epic proportions.

No doubt. However, the Catholic church is not a democratic institution. The Church is way out in front on issues like the Death Penalty, social justice and other things. Death Penalty would also lose in an election. Respecting gay people's choice on who they want to love is not an issue that is subject to majority belief. (I'm not saying that you hold those views, just pointing out my feelings on it.)

As far as joining another church ... I'm not a big fan of most protestant dogma. Anything with predetermination is out. Anglicans are out--it's hard to get into religions founded based on one man's need to get off.

Anglicans are out--it's hard to get into religions founded based on one man's need to get off.

Well, Henry was indeed a womanizer, but he didn't need the church's blessing to sleep with another woman. He was doing plenty of that on his own. What he needed was the Church's blessing to marry another woman who was more likely to give him a legitimate male heir, his country having recently come out of 100 years of turmoil and bloodshed as a result of murky dynastic succession. And under different circumstances, the church would have readily given it's sanction, but for the political wranglings of another monarch, Charles V. Under the circumstances, Henry did the right and proper thing for his country, and eventually gave them the Tudor successor they needed, though not without a few bumps in the road.

As far as joining another church ... I'm not a big fan of most protestant dogma. Anything with predetermination is out. Anglicans are out--it's hard to get into religions founded based on one man's need to get off.

We take our kids to the ELCA. Service is very, very similar. Theology is different at some key points but not as different as the Calvinist lines, especially those that came through England. Super-liberal (Missouri Synod, not so much!) in terms of personal choices, gay pastors, women pastors, etc. Strong social conscience. More of an interest in faith/doctrine/theology than other lefty Protestant denominations, in my experience. I am sure it varies place to place, like most things do. And you have to get used to the height! In NYC, you can tell the lapsed Catholics from the Midwest ELCA transplants by lining them up by height.